As a public sector body and a University for All, UCD is committed to complying with the(opens in a new window) EU Web Accessibility Directive. This is a piece of legislation that ensures we can all access digital content, such as exam papers, in a format that meets our needs.
Many students in UCD require reasonable accommodations, such as assistive technologies to participate in assessment, and as such, it is essential that all exam papers meet the standards of the Web Accessibility Directive. Failure to meet these accessibility standards may result in a student being unable to use their technologies, experiencing disruptions in their exam, and ultimately not being able to equitably participate in assessments. This would be grounds for a formal complaint or an assessment appeal.
To ensure the equitable participation of all students in assessment, we require that all exam papers undergo thorough accessibility checks. These checks can be done using automated tools in two ways:
- If you have an Adobe licence, you can (opens in a new window)use Adobe’s accessibility checker to review material.
- Ally is an automated accessibility checker integrated into Brightspace. It measures all documents uploaded against the standards required by the Web Accessibility Directive and provides feedback on any necessary corrections. All staff members have a ‘Sandbox’ where they can upload and test materials under ‘All modules’ on Brightspace. Learn how to use Ally here.
Guidelines for producing accessible exam papers can be found here.
(opens in a new window)Watch a 20-minute workshop on producing accessible PDFs.